Passport Please?

It was a simple enough question, and one that's asked at every hotel, guest house and rest house in India. I should have been prepared for it. I was, of course, not.

It wasn't until I'd actually opened my money belt that it dawned on me that of course I didn't have my passport, it was with the friendly Iranian embassy where we'd been that morning and had handed over our vital documents to be told that we could pick them up 2 days later (this was on Wednesday). It had been a good morning - we were finally getting somewhere.

But that all changed as I was standing in the foyer of Hare Krishna Guesthouse. No passport, no room; it was as simples as that. It didn't matter that I'd stayed there 2 weeks ago. It didn't matter that the guy recognised me, and it certainly didn't matter that ALL the info from my passport was written in the book from the last time, including my passport number and expiry date of my Indian Visa. Without a receipt from the embassy (which they hadn't given me), I could not get a room. I could sleep in the foyer on some cushions, but a bed was out of the question. A quick search of my bag failed to reveal the photocopies of my documents that must be with the rest of my gear in Dharamshala.

This all happened at about 4pm, just when the consulate was shut, but with no other option (Will was staying with Indian friends on the other side of town and I hadn't got their number), I jumped into an autorickshaw to take be back to the embassy. The consulate was closed, but the main window was open. I explained exactly what a fool I was, and inquired if there was there any way I could get a receipt. I was asked to wait, so wait I did.

About 20min later, the stern yet polite man who had softly shattered our dreams of easy visa obtaination (I think I just made up that word) with the line "only 7 day Transit Visa" emerged from the Consulate. In his hand were two red passports. After a stern scolding for returning when I shouldn't have and for not having photocopies of my important documents, he told me that "you only bring trouble on yourself", and handed me the little red books with two brand-spanking new Iranian Visas.

So now we wait for the bus to take us back up North. Pick up our bikes, and in 4 days we should be in Pakistan.

So, all in all, the moral of the story is that if you want a quick visa to Iran, be an idiot. The second is to always check your bags. When I finally did get into my room and empty my bag, what was there? Photocopies of certain relevant pages from a little book.